ESTHER

Mordecai, the beautiful Esther, became a competitor with Persian
maidens for the crown‐royal of Persia. There was a graciousness about
the Jewish maiden which pleased both the king and his chamberlain,
and Ahasuerus set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen
instead of Vashti.
Meanwhile, the Jewish maiden obeyed Mordecai, her elder cousin, just
as when she was brought up with him. While she lived in a heathen
court,
THE FEAR OF GOD
was greater to her than all the riches, and pleasures and indulgences of
her royal estate; and when Mordecai discovered the delinquencies of
two chamberlains, she "certified the king thereof in Mordecai's name."
It is not surprising that a king, the principle of whose life was selfindulgence,
should have been capricious in his likes and dislikes, and by
such caprice should have exalted an unworthy favorite to a place of
honor. A selfish despot is the greatest of tyrants. Haman, the Agagite,
was the name of this favorite, and, probably, he was a simple flatterer
with a smooth tongue who made the king his tool to obtain his own
aggrandizement. It was flattering to the pride of this unworthy man
that all the king's servants in the king's gate bowed and reverenced him.
But there was one man, a servant of the King of Kings, who would not
own the superiority of Haman. "Mordecai bowed not nor did him
reverence." So bitter was the enmity which this treatment inspired in
Haman that he was full of wrath, and in his senseless, wicked anger, he
sought not only to lay hands on Mordecai, but to destroy all the Jews
throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus. Probably he had
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